treetop treehouse

I designed and built this 1,200 sq ft. treehouse fourteen feet high for a ranch family who had alot of grandchildren. The owners concerns were not to put one screw or bolt in the existing hundred year old live oak trees. I had to go cut down my own cedar trees off their property leaving the tops on to make the treehouse look like it is built in a cluster of tree. I learned in Texas that if one looks near a creek on the north face of a hill you can find trees grow straight fourty feet tall and this is where we cut our structural support trees. The trees were so tall and massive we had to use a reach fork to stand them up to set them level. Since the span was twenty feet I used 4’‘x12’‘x 24’’ for all the structural joists and timberframed the corners with large threaded rods in the 4’‘x 12’‘notching into the cedar trees. I then used wol. deck boards to finish the floors. The deck also had a walkway going toward other trees with zip lines coming off. The last picture is of my audience a red stag buck who watched us through the whole project. We named him “stinky” because he was always smelling the air.

-- "The hand is the cutting edge of the mind but the wind and sun are the healing factors of the heart

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11 comments so far

I think you must have a very unique perspective…which is probably obvious to your prospective clients/customers…and I would guess that you must be thumping your tub pretty loud to attract such sensational and exotic situations of work (or maybe the situaltions are mundane until you get ahold of the projects?) and once you are known as the go-to guy for the wild and impossible you’re in the cat-bird seat. My hat’s off to you, you’re good…and must have a pretty good team to draw from. Keep ‘em coming, especiially the photos…they tell a lot of the story.

Wonderful playground, makes me want to move south. Montana is great, but we are having too much latefall weather in the springtime lately to be real enjoyable. If one of my numberous hunting grandsons sawyour buck, he would be a nice trophy mount the next hunting season. Once again thank you for sharing.

Looks great, BUT, from what I see that span of about 22 ft for front beam with 2 ,you did say timber frame, notches in it for the cross beams now becomes not 4” x 12” but is only 6 ” you are sure it can carry its own weight yet the weight of a lot of people on top of it.? the span between joists looks like about 7 feet with deck boards ,? 1 inch thick, they are meant to be on 16” centers maybe 24”. Will they carry the weight of all those grand kids safely. I dont see any angle braces to stop side to side movement, kids on top bouncing around causing movement in structure to possible lean and collapse from swaying.Maybe a couple more posts under the center beams,joists, would be a little safety to avoid collapse.